Morning Briefing
This time I spent my morning finishing the Day Two post, and as a result failed to get any form of coffee on my way in. The briefing passed in a haze. I do know I did not win any goodies, though.
Lecture: Bit by Bit Reportage, or How I Built Reportage Projects into my Everyday Life, by Suhita Shirodkar
Another reportage talk! Suhita began by explaining that reportage does not have to be big or international, like war reporting. It can be small-scale and local, and arise out of one’s own interests. Suhita herself started out documenting the vintage shop/restaurant signs of San Jose out of curiosity, but they led her to learn a lot about the farming community replaced by Silicon Valley and, eventually, to end up with a website, a book, and some exhibitions. Since then, she has completed another project, Faces of Recovery, about her conversations with homeless people (which she started having while painting the signs) and is now working on something about local food availability. She is not sure what, exactly: she repeatedly emphasized that she is not a planner, but that reportage is possible even for non-planner types, as long as they are generally curious and–in our case, anyway–respond to curiosity by sketching.
Workshop: Brush Pen Drawing in Urban Sketching, by Dietmar Stiller
I chose this workshop because I do not know how to use soft brush pens, or fude pens of any description, and I think it was a good choice, even though Dietmar did not have time to have us practice technique, but, in his own words, threw us straight into the deep water. He gave us all Pentel pocket pens and paper (alliteration not intended), showed us some of the possible marks we could make, and had us spend some minutes sketching nearby objects.
Afterwards, he performed CPR on us by telling us that we were the best group he had taught at the Symposium, showed us how to do a two-value thumbnail (he looks for up to seven shapes to draw) and threw us in the deep water again, to draw our own. He then critiqued our attempts, very kindly. (My attempt is below.)
Incidentally, have you noticed that my demo and both my lectures had some focus on thumbnails? Are thumbnails the new (old) hotness?
Anyway, after critiquing our thumbnails, very nicely, Dietmar showed us how he would sketch the scene himself. It was very fun to watch him! Like many ink users, he puts down some tiny dots to mark important points and agles, and the just goes for it. He explained how he tries to leave his lines a bit incomplete, never fully closes small shapes like circles, and likes to give some lines echoes (you can see this by my right kerb and roof.
None of that matters though, as the point was just to use a brushpen without, like, injuring myself with it.
Also, while discussing his thinking, Dietmar used the concept of a hero, or cool element that draws the viewer’s attention. He often uses a piece of scenery or street furniture (his demo had a stop sign) but he does sometimes use people. And he has a cheat sheet for doing so! He has pre-prepared drawings of people of various sizes and printed them on some foil, so he can hold them in front of the drawing and see what sort of an effect a similar person might have.
I have actually considered doing something similar during the 100 person challenge, though not on foil. I thought about drawing a few examples of the sort of people I might see wherever I am sketching (mostly selfie-taking tourists, in many cases) and just keeping them off the side as a reference in case the real people move too fast. So maybe I will do that? I do not think it is against the spirit of urban sketching, specifically if I try to fit the people to the location.
Art Market 3
I brought some people from my workshop here, with two goals: to show them how to get free watercolour sticks at the Daniel Smith table (I, myself, nobly refrained from picking up another one) and also to introduce them to Autumn Green by Roman Szmal, a colour that paints itself. (We had been talking about how much they dislike the green options in their palettes.) Anyway, they liked the paint, and two people bought it! I thought about getting a colour for myself, probably Rudy, and was loudly wondering about the wisdom of this, when Mr Szmal himself said I should not buy it, but save my money for Christmas. Was this a stealth annoucement that they will finally release some tubes? I am not convinced, but a few people on the Discord think so…
Final Sketchwalk
This walk was less of a walk and more of a milling about in the area of the Saint-Sernin basilica. Since the event was open to the public, there were hundreds of sketchers present, so most of the spots that combined interesting views and shade were claimed at once. I ended up painting in two different sunny spots.
Reader, this was not a good choice. My brain got boiled. By the end I was almost hallucinating and my perspective suffered.
(Incidentally, it seems to me that the main thing I am interested in sketching right now is overworked architecture/perspective. It could be a good instinct: I need to learn that stuff, and the only way to learn such things is practice. It also seems to me that my sketching gets worse the longer I am at the Symposium, but this is easily explained by the extreme sleep deprivation and general visual overwhelm. I do expect to see an improvement as soon as I get some proper sleep.)
With so many sketchers present, the throwdown resembled a Black Friday sale or maybe a rugby scrum, so I did not participate. I did participate in the pictures taken afterwards, standing with the Polish sketchers. Who were very smart, since they staked out a semi-shaded area immediately. Smarter than I had been earlier, anyway.
The Closing Party
The two main elements of this party are, the big reveal of next year’s Symposium location, and the raffle (where the main prize is a workshop ticket for next year; other prizes are more goodies from the sponsors). There is also a silent auction of random sketches submitted by the participants, and loads of presentations thanking everyone.
I will not hold my readers in suspense: next year’s destination is TORONTO! Which is an interesting choice for the Idyll Sketching community, as it has strong Canadian connections. So next year someone else might be writing this spy report…
As for the rest of the evening, well, I looked for the numerous people with whom I had interacted during the Symposium, but of course most were not to be seen. This has been a real feature of the Symposium for me: you meet someone, you have a good conversation, and then you never ever see them again. Anyway, I did get a bit lucky, as I eventually found a whole THREE people I knew, and we watched the raffle together. In a horrible miscarriage of fate, none of us won anything (and not because we had no tickets: we had all bought at least one for the emotional excitement).
Later on, I had a fun conversation about whether paying for a symposium ticket is worth it, or whether most of the experience can be replicated just be showing up on location. One would miss out on classes and demos, of course, but I am not sure I am a rabid class-taker. And one could still talk to the hundreds of random sketchers one meets around as an equal, plus the ticket-less people do organize their own events. I can even imagine organizing some sort of supplies exchange!
So, I don’t know. We reached no conclusions.